That Special Someone

All the characters in this story are over 18 and completely fictional.

That special someone.

Once upon a time there was a young girl who believed that friends could be trusted and love waits...

No, this isn't a fairytale, but what she believed was.

She was called Kelsey but she grew up, so now I'm called Kelsey and I'm a totally different person from that naïve innocent. This is the story of how things changed.

In high school I had it all: I was popular, had a boyfriend on the football team, decent grades, liberal and supportive parents and a kid brother who wasn't actually a monster. Life was good and the future was bright. Yeah, right.

My boyfriend, Danny, like all guys his age, was very keen on getting laid. He didn't like being the only virgin on the football team. I wanted to wait until graduation, he didn't. We went round and round the issue endlessly and I finally got him to agree: Prom night. It was practically an American tradition anyway and one more semester wouldn't kill him.

I had it all planned out. Danny and I would sneak into our summerhouse after the senior prom. There were plenty of mattresses off the sun beds and my parents slept at the front of the house so wouldn't notice anything. Two weeks before Prom night, I was already stockpiling stuff in the summerhouse: Beer in the little refrigerator, my old CD player, candles for mood lighting, sheets to make a 'proper' bed, condoms because that wasn't going to be negotiable. I wanted my first time – our first time – to be memorable, and not in an 'OMG! That was awful! lol' kind of way.

Naturally, I confided all my plans to Emma. We'd been best friends since kindergarten and boys were about the only things we hadn't shared. Emma was an early developer and I was a late bloomer. She was not only prettier than me but also more confident, more flirtatious and got off with enough of the football team that she'd have been made their mascot if she wasn't already head of the cheerleading squad. You see why Emma was my very best source of information on guys?

In hindsight, I should have wondered why Eric was suddenly so patient that last semester. Even on a promise, he should have been trying to push the boundaries of petting more than he did. Idiot that I was, I was actually flattered by his evident respect for me.

A week before 'the night', I popped round to Emma's for some tips on blowjobs, figuring Danny would like one (and I might feel sore enough to not want a second go). I knew Emma had a bit of a rep for them so I went round to the Holt house for advice. Danny's car was parked down the street. I felt suddenly cold. Instead of ringing the bell, I went round the back and up into our old tree house to peek through the window into Emma's room. I learned all I'd ever want to know about blowjobs in those thirty seconds.

I didn't cry. I went home feeling numb all over and I phoned Emma to tell her that if she ever spoke to me again, ever tried to justify, deny or explain, then I'd tear her face off with my nails.

Then I phoned Danny's house. His mom answered so I left a message: "Don't call. Don't come round. Don't ever speak to me again. Don't even look at me. How could you stick your dick in that slut's mouth?"

I hope his mother delivered it verbatim and I hope he had some explaining to do.

Then I cried. Mom wanted to know what was up so we sat down quietly and I told her everything, including the summerhouse plan. I think Mom was surprised to hear I hadn't lost my cherry yet. She hinted she'd been waiting for me to trust her enough to come clean about Danny and me for a while.

Mom and Dad let me stay off school that last week, okaying it with the Principal. I didn't go to graduation, didn't go to the Senior Prom, didn't bother getting a copy of our yearbook and didn't speak to Emma or Danny ever again.

* * * * *

Mom's eldest sister has a flower shop in Greenwich Village. I spent the summer there, learning flower arranging and preparing for college. Aunt Titania (Not her given name: She changed it during the sixties) was left behind when the sixties moved on. She wore flowers in her hair every day, even though she was grey now. We got on well together. If Mom had told her why I didn't want one last summer with my school friends, she never mentioned it. She also never pried into my business. I was happy there.

Most of the men who come into a florist's are attached. If they're buying flowers for their wives or girlfriends, they generally don't try to date the girl who's serving them. But there were still a few men, claiming to want flowers for their mother, who wanted to buy me coffee.

Most got politely turned down but a couple asked nicely enough to make me want to say yes. I needed to do something to get over Danny and I figured some social time with an attentive stranger might help me.

In total, that summer, I had three first dates, no second dates. Each date started with drinks and ended with me fending off persistent groping and repeating the word 'no' a lot. In hindsight, I'm surprised none of them ended in date rape.

* * * * *

So I started my freshman year at Menlo College, San Francisco, with a complete downer on men that kept my roommate constantly vigilant for signs that she was more my type. I took to keeping a Bible on my nightstand in the hope she'd assume my chastity was a faith issue and relax a little. It didn't work.

Eventually, without discussing it with me first, my homophobic roomie asked the powers-that-be to move her to another room on the grounds that she wasn't comfortable with having a lesbian roommate.

She must have made it sound like I was coming on to her or something because the bursar asked to see me privately. I explained that I was not in any way inclined towards other females and that all this had arisen from my foolish roommate's inability to accept that I had the same lack of interest in the boys on campus. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I broke down and told the bursar some of my reasons for not liking guys: He was surprisingly understanding.

I got my own room and my ex-roomie was quietly warned about malicious gossip.

It wasn't until my second year at Menlo that I started to wonder if girls lay in my future. I only thought of it then because I had to. My lab partner and new best friend, Mariana, was openly gay and her hints about being attracted to me as more than a friend forced me to think about how I should react to her advances. I decided that casual sex with another woman wasn't for me either. I wanted a proper relationship.

In my final year, Mariana was uninvolved and still eager to persuade me to cross the street: Or at the very least get out of the middle of the road, as she put it.

So we tried, but my way. We shared a bedroom, shared a bed and got to know each other very well before anything sexual happened. Mariana quickly took to sleeping in her skin to try and hurry me up but my pyjamas stayed resolutely on for the first semester.

After a few nights at my parents', sleeping alone for the first time in weeks and decidedly missing Mariana's fragrance and warmth next to me, I knew I had to try with her.

Mariana was surprised and delighted the night I came to bed and my pyjamas didn't. She was incredibly gentle, caressing and kissing but not once trying to cross the boundary implied by my panties. I was amazed how good she made my breasts feel: My nipples had never throbbed like that when I'd touched them – or when Danny mauled them for that matter. It was certainly a positive sign.

In the morning, my panties went into the laundry basket with a rather crustier gusset than usual. I couldn't deny I'd been aroused.

The next night, Mariana gently hinted that she wasn't wearing any 'boundaries', so I tentatively had my first experience of touching another woman intimately. Mariana encouraged me and coaxed me to do more until she climaxed with my hand buried between her thighs: The first orgasm I'd ever given someone else.

With a few nights more gentle persuasion, I first acceded to being touched through my panties and finally, to their removal. That was the night of my first proper orgasm. By 'proper', I mean not solo.

After that, Mariana and I experimented with and enjoyed most types of lesbian sex. The only boundary that remained sacrosanct was my hymen. I refused to give that up and it didn't really matter because there was so much we could still do. Oral was my favourite, and turned out to be Mariana's too, so we were happy together.

* * * * *

After college, I went back to Greenwich Village and Aunt Titania's flower shop. Mariana was offered a marvellous job opportunity and chose to stay in San Francisco so, with the whole of North America between us, we had to part. We did promise to stay in touch though.

During a year in New York, I had only one brief fling with another girl. It ended when she got all butch and tried to use a strap-on on me. No means no. It also means 'this is over'.

I'd been celibate for six months when I passed L'Origine Du Monde, a new art gallery, owned by a photographer called Eric Kruppa. I'd read a scathing review of Mr Kruppa's work in the New York Times and formed the prejudicial opinion that he was just another misogynistic pornographer, so I don't know why I didn't just walk on by.

But the fact is, I didn't walk on by. I went in and immediately fell under the spell of Kruppa's work. The gallery was full of enormous images of vaginas, although there actually only seemed to be two different vaginas on show. The shock wasn't the detail of these explicit images, but the sexual arousal that was so apparent and the sexual acts that were depicted: A three foot long tongue probing an anus a foot across; A close-up so enlarged only the lower half of the girl's vagina showed on a five foot square canvas with the point of focus being a huge, pearly drop of female secretion that, at this magnification was the size of a soccer ball; An image of semen dribbling from a squatting woman's vagina into the glisteningly moist looking mouth of another woman; Several images of the two women being penetrated by an enormously over-sized penis; The most explicitly pornographic image was of one of the women being fisted both vaginally and anally by (I assume) the other woman while she was wearing shiny steel handcuffs. That picture was entitled 'love cuffs'.

After going right round the gallery, becoming aroused and grossed out in equal measure, I found myself in conversation with a stunning blonde girl who introduced herself as the gallery manager and went on to identify herself as one of the two models.

The manager, 'Call me B', was as charming and engaging as she was beautiful. When I asked, she told me the monster penis was the photographer himself and the other female was her fellow courtesan. The reference to courtesans threw me a little. Clearly the three of them had some sort of weird group relationship going on.

I made my excuses and left with one of their catalogues buried in my bag.

* * * * *

I spent days looking through that catalogue. It was at once, the most pornographic thing I'd ever seen and the most stimulating. If I hadn't met B, I'd have assumed Mr Kruppa was exploiting the women he photographed, but she had been so engaging, so obviously very bright and she managed the gallery. During the twenty minutes we spoke, she'd shown nothing but enthusiasm for her work. When I saw her – all three of them – on a late night arts show on TV, B made such a strong academic case for Mr Kruppa's 'art' that it was hard to refute it. She actually claimed the moral high ground traditionally held by feminists.

I realised after days of arousal at the sight of Mr Kruppa's images that this was something I needed to be a part of. B had claimed that the images of her did not define who or what she was, but did define her sexual nature. Well, if anything defined my sexual nature it was my hymen. And my virginity certainly didn't define who or what I was!

On an impulse, I emailed the gallery offering myself as a model, making mention of my intact hymen and attaching a photo of myself in my underwear, so he could see I had a decent figure.

That night, I was so excited I climaxed three times over B's beautiful images, but by morning the elation was gone. What had I done? No way could I go through with it. I found myself practically praying they wouldn't take up my offer. I'd be so embarrassed telling that sweet, bright girl I'd had a change of heart.

* * * * *

I was so conflicted over the following fortnight that even Aunt Titania felt the need to ask if I was all right.

"What's the matter, Dear?" Aunty handed me a cup of camomile tea and sat down opposite me. "You've been fidgety and distracted for two weeks."

"Body language mainly, but lots of little clues too." Aunty answered the unasked question 'How did she know?' "Relax, Dear, you're secret's safe with me. I had a few girlfriends, back in the day."

"You did?" If I'd thought about it, I wouldn't have been so surprised, but Aunt Titania had been right at the centre of the summer of love and never really grown out of the whole hippie culture. It made sense now she mentioned it.

"Oh yes." Her expression was wistful. "Everyone called me Tittie – short for Titania – and I used it as an excuse to show off my own titties. I think I spent half the decade topless."

"Mom never said."

"Your Mom never knew. She was only six when I left home at sixteen, changed my name and went to California. Dear, I've had hundreds of lovers, half of them other girls and I never cared how many people were watching us. Heck, back then I didn't even care how many joined in. I believed in free love."

I could see what Aunty was doing: establishing her unshockability and empathy credentials so I'd feel more comfortable discussing my own problem. She was doing a good job too.

"Hundreds? Really?"

"And not one social infection. I was truly blessed." That wistful, nostalgic look again.

"I know the one. Mr Kruppa has been in here for flowers once or twice. I thought he was a rather nice young man but the papers don't seem to agree. Go on."

"I read the reviews too. And I went in to see for myself."

"And you were expecting to disapprove as much as the critics?"

"Yes. It's like watching horror films. You know they'll gross you out, but still you want to watch."

"But you weren't 'grossed out' in the gallery?" Aunty was good at wheedling facts out, when she wanted to be.

"At first yes, I was. But I got talking to the manager and she told me she was one of the models, showed me which images were of her, including the seventy foot long mosaic of her vagina on the floor. She was so clearly not exploited, not stupid and not shy about her work."

"And?" aunty prompted me to go on.

"And I was looking through their catalogue one night and decided I could offer Mr Kruppa something these girls couldn't. So I emailed him an application to model for him."

"And he hasn't replied?" Aunty showed no sign of being shocked that I wanted to model for explicit photographs.

"No." I sounded sullen, even to my own ears.

"And what's so special about you?"

"Aunty... I'm virgo intacta." My emotions got the better of me and I started to cry.

"Oh Kelsey." Aunty drew me to her and let me sob on her shoulder while she stroked my back and made maternal noises. "There, there...let it all out..."

Eventually, I calmed down, pushed myself away from her, back into a sitting position, and tried to smile with red-rimmed eyes and snot running from my nose onto my top lip. "I've messed up your blouse. Sorry."

"Shush Child." She hadn't called me child since I was twelve. "Go wash your face. It'll make you feel better." She got up off the sofa herself and went to change her tear dampened and snotty blouse.

When I got back from the bathroom, she'd made a fresh pot of camomile tea too.

"Feeling better?" She asked as I took my place beside her.

"Much better. Thanks Aunty. I guess I'm just a mess." I took a sip of hot tea.

"Nonsense! But tell me one thing."

"Only one?"

"For now. Have you been upset because you changed your mind about modelling or because they didn't get in touch?"

"A bit of both. I don't want to do it anymore, but it would have been nice to be wanted." It sounded dumb when I actually vocalised it.

"But you have been wanted in the past, haven't you? Perhaps too much? Perhaps before you were ready?"

"Did Mom tell you why I wanted to spend that first summer here?" How else could she know?

"Of course she did. Then you dated a couple of times that summer then seemed to lose interest in boys entirely. And when you started spending time with Natalie... Lets just say I know where her interest lies and it soon became obvious you did too. Body language."

"Oh look at the time!" I caught sight of the clock. It was half an hour past when lunch was supposed to end. "I'd better go." I stood quickly.

"I remember. I'll be fine." I turned to the door then turned back, bent and kissed Aunty's cheek. "Thanks Aunty." Then I did go and open up the shop.

* * * * *

"I've got you something." Aunty didn't come back until nearly dinnertime. She found me in the kitchen cooking spaghetti. She put a large flat envelope on the table and went to hang up her coat.

"What is it?" I asked loudly over my shoulder.

"Open it and see." Came the reply.

I washed my hands, dried them and picked up the envelope. It looked like the sort used for large calendars. I opened the flap and pulled out a print from L'Origine Du Monde.

"That one's my favourite." Aunty said, coming back into the kitchen.

It was the same image the gallery used on it's stationery: A white Orchid against a dark background with B's labia digitally edited into the centre of the flower, replacing its sex organs with hers so cunningly you had to look twice before you noticed the switch.

"I went to the gallery to try and understand why you'd volunteered to pose." Aunty explained. "I can see why the critics hate it. It's all very in-your face, but he's a good photographer and his work shows significant technical skill. I met the manager too: I can see why you were attracted to her."

"I didn't say I was attracted to her." I knew I hadn't admitted to that.

"Didn't you? My mistake. Anyway, that print is perfect for this place: Two generations of lesbians living over a flower shop." She took the print off me carefully and went to put it on the mantelpiece. "Anything I can do to help with dinner?"

"Just laying the table. The spaghetti's just about ready." I got back to my cooking.

* * * * *

Aunty didn't mention the matter again and I didn't raise it. I guess I wasn't ready to admit fancying B. Had that attraction been behind my offer to pose? Had I been looking for a way to impress B and be noticed by her? In all honesty, probably, and that is also probably the wrong reason.

The only thing that stopped me fantasizing about B was my period, a couple of days later. At least, that was the only thing that kept me from masturbating every night.

Then came the phone call. It was Helen, B's fellow 'courtesan', who called me to discuss my application to model. I stopped short of telling her I'd changed my mind because she immediately suggested that she, B and I should meet for coffee and discuss it.